NPR News Now - NPR News: 02-07-2025 6AM EST

Episode Date: February 7, 2025

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Technologist Paul Garcia is using AI to create photos of people's most precious memories. How her mother was dressed, the haircut that she remembered. We generated tens of images and then she saw two images that was like, that was it. Ideas about the future of memory. That's on the TED Radio Hour podcast from NPR. Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Janine Herbst. Unions representing federal workers are suing to prevent the dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development. As NPR's Shannon Bond reports, the lawsuit accuses the Trump administration of creating a global humanitarian crisis. The lawsuit comes as USAID is preparing to put the majority of its staff on leave and

terminate most of its contractors starting Friday. Fewer than 300 staffers deemed essential are set to continue working, according to internal emails seen by NPR. Hundreds of contractors have already been laid off or furloughed. The lawsuit also challenges the White House's freeze on foreign aid, which it says is having dire consequences to health and safety around the world. It argues only Congress has the right to shut down the agency, not the president. Shannon Bond, NPR News. SOT

Senate Republicans last night confirmed Russell Vogt as the new head of the powerful White House budget office. That's despite fierce pushback from Democrats who staged an all-night talk-a-thon against his confirmation Wednesday night and see him as the embodiment of Trump's agenda. Vote, whose promised sweeping spending cuts has longstanding ties to the Ultra-Conservative Project 2025 policy agenda.

All Democrats voted against his confirmation. Senator Jeff Merkley says his Republican colleagues are too scared to defy the president. They are very nervous, shaking their boots really, about standing up for the Constitution and standing up to Donald Trump. Speaking there to ABC News, this is Vought's second time serving as Trump's director

of the Office of Management and Budget. After leaving that job at the end of Trump's first term, he founded a conservative Christian group, the Center for Renewing America, while helping craft the controversial Project 2025. During the election, Trump denied involvement with the policy agenda, but it's been a blueprint that has informed his return to the White House. A member of Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency has resigned after the resurfacing of a now-deleted racist post on social media. And Pierce Bobby Allen reports the 25-year-old Doge staffer had access to the Treasury Department's payment systems.

The White House has confirmed that Marco Alas has resigned as a top staffer on Musk's Doge team. Alas is a software engineer who had been given access to the Treasury Department systems that process trillions of dollars of government payments every year. The Wall Street Journal uncovered deleted posts on X in which Alés said normalize Indian hate and I just want a eugenic immigration policy. Is that too much to ask among other hateful screeds? NPR has independently confirmed the posts. The Doge team has come under scrutiny by former government officials

for just how much power they seem to be wielding from inside of the White House. That's included nearly dismantling the $40 billion U.S. agency for international development. Bobbi Allen, NPR News. This is NPR News. In Alaska, authorities are searching part of the state's western coast for a bearing air flight that went missing with 10 people on board. Officials say the Cessna Caravan went missing before yesterday afternoon on its way from Una Lockleet to Nome over the Norton Sound, south of the Arctic Circle. Ground crews are now searching the icy coastline

and the Nome Volunteer Fire Department says the U.S. Coast Guard sent a C-130 plane to help in the search effort. Southern California Edison told state regulators that its utility equipment may have ignited one of the smaller blazes that raged during the deadly fire and windstorm in Los Angeles last month. And here's Liz Baker has more. In letters to the State Public Utilities Commission, Southern California Edison wrote that its equipment quote, may have been associated with the ignition of the Hearst fire. That fire destroyed two mobile homes and nearly 800 acres. Nowhere near as destructive or deadly as the Eaton fire, which killed 17 people and burned

over 9,000 structures. Southern California Edison has been accused of responsibility for that fire, too, with lawsuits pointing to a video that allegedly shows arcing from a transmission tower right around the time of ignition. The company says that it has seen the video, but has not found evidence that their equipment there started the fire, although they did find irregularities on a different power line around the same time and are continuing to investigate. Liz Baker, NPR News, Los Angeles. U.S. futures contracts are trading in mixed territory at this hour. Dow futures are up a fraction.

In world financial markets, Asia markets closed in mixed territory. The Nikkei in Japan down 0.7%. I'm Janene Herbst, NPR News in Washington. Hey, it's Robin Hilton from NPR News in Washington.